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“And you'll kill them if I don’t help you?”

Sebastian’s brows furrowed in an impressed sort of expression. “Now you’re getting it.”

“You do realize Adrian doesn’t give me a free pass to his secrets, right? I don’t know anything that can help you.” Unless he wanted a very long, very detailed description of the internal battle I was waging trying and failing not to develop real feelings for him, I wouldn’t be much help.

“I don’t want to know his secrets. Not his more professional ones, anyways.” Sebastian rolled his signet ring around his pinky. “I need you to find out who his heirs are.”

“You couldn’t figure that out by yourself? Starting with his sister, for example?” Persy was an obvious soft spot for Adrian, so I felt fine bringing her up.

“I’m not involving Persy in this,” Sebastian said quickly, before schooling down an even colder maskover his face. “Adrian also makes it quite known that he cares about order and responsibility. For all I know, he’s chosen three random people just to keep his line safe.”

“I’m not going to give you information to help you kill him.” As I said it, the thought materialized in my mind. Adrian. Dead.

A dark, urgent feeling flooded my body. It was something desperate that made my skin itch.

He couldn’t die. That just simply wasn’t a possibility I’d entertain.

That certainty, the absolute refusal to let him leave me, pushed an idea to the surface.

I needed to get as much information out of Sebastian as I possibly could. I was certain he would do something to try to get me to talk. And I was pretty sure threatening my family was only the beginning.

But I had to try to help Adrian. To keep him safe.

“You will,” Sebastian said, his tone all confidence.

“Why do you need to know?” I grumbled, hoping it came across like I was giving in to his threat.

Sebastian’s mouth pulled taut, then something close to a twitch flashed across his face. “My initial plan was to start poisoning him. To make people lose faith in his abilities. I tried it on Daphne first.”

And now I wanted to kill Sebastian twice as much. He’d hurt one of my closest friends and was, again,threatening Adrian’s life.

“It was the perfect situation—or so I thought. If something went wrong, Sabina would just pick up the slack. What Piper failed to tell me,” Sebastian said through a sneer. “Was that Daphne had taken on Lukas’s power. And I can’t have people losing faith in the gods as a whole. I need them losing faith in Adrian.”

I hoped the doubtful look on my face was enough to spike his anger. “So you just orchestrated an attack on Rose for fun?”

“Not quite. Rose is the poster child for what Adrian’s birth made the gods do. We lived in peace for thousands of years before Adrian came along. Then he’s born and boom,” Sebastian clapped his hands together and I jolted, “We have an eighteen-year-old girl who kills her brother and father in the same week just so she can rule the Underworld. The news of her wedding was smoothing too much over. I was just reminding people what happened.”

I barely knew Dominic, but from the little I did know…Sebastian had just signed his own death sentence. He was going to go absolutely off-the-walls insane.

“And Daphne was what? A test?” I asked, bringing the conversation back to her. I needed to give Lukas a reason to kill him too.

“You could call it that. Took a little to get the dose right. The one I gave her had her ripping a hole in a barrier minutes later, which was taking it a little farther than I intended.” Andtherewas the reason Lukas would want to kill him. “But, the poison not working made room for a far better plan. Adrian basically handed it to me by making those safe houses.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, even though Adrian had told me what had happened. I needed to convince Sebastian as best I could that I didn’t know anything that could help him.

“It’s simple, really,” Sebastian said, leaning further back in his chair with feline grace. “All the gods have two options—they support me taking over, or they findthemselves locked in a safe house until they crack. The way our power is set up, the only thing we need to do is stay alive.”

“So you’re just going to lock everyone up until they agree to let you rule?” At Sebastian’s nod I added, “I’m sure that’s going to go over real well.”

“I think you’ll find that people don’t quite care who leads them, so long as they are protected. I’m just taking what’s mine.”

I was seething now, fury pumping hot through my blood. “What do you want from me?”

“I told you,” Sebastian said, cocking his head like he might have misjudged my intelligence. “I want to know who his heirs are. I haven’t ruled out killing him.” No.No.“But I need to make sure if I do, whoever takes over is suppressed so that I can step into the role.”

I gritted my teeth together. “How do you expect me to find out?”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re a smart girl, aren’t you? Figure it out.”